


An Empire Too Narrow

by Nochi



Series: Rita's Successor [3]
Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Coming Out, Gen, Original Character - Freeform, ominous floating overlords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 10:48:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14400564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nochi/pseuds/Nochi
Summary: Zordon said at the beginning the Rita wouldn't be the final threat. None of them knew the threat would be so personal.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was commissioned from Tumblr. Many thanks to Mala for being an amazing beta reader, and my nameless datemate for being a repository of Power Rangers knowledge.

"This has gotta be it," Sam said, gesturing at the sonar image being projected in the middle of the command center. "This is my giant robot! There was a green robot, right?"  
"Yes," Zordon confirmed, somewhat reluctantly. "I'd wager it fell not far from where Rita slumbered, herself."

"Only problem is, none of us know where that is," Jason pointed out. "My dad's boat pulled her up, but he never said where from."

"And she was much lighter than a robot," Billy added. "The current could have taken her miles and miles away."

"But it's still in the coastal waters, right? It's gotta be, or they never would have snagged it." Sam was pacing now, back and forth across the control room. "That's not a huge area to search, right?"

"It would still take ages," Jason said pragmatically, frowning.

"Why are you trying to crush my dreams?" Sam asked, turning to face him. "This is the literal first thing I asked you, Jason. When do I get a giant robot. We found my robot."

"I'm not crushing anything!" he protested. "I'm just saying, logically - "

Alpha made a hemming sound from behind Jason. Sam imagined it was what a microwave trying to clear its throat would sound like. "None of the Zords are forged of terrestrial metals," he pointed out. "I could, theoretically, scan for it."

"Then do that," Sam said, after a moment's pause.

"It would put quite a drain on the ship's power supply." Alpha laid a hand on the console, almost protectively. "We've been on emergency power since we, y'know, _crashed_ , but with the Rangers active again we've been running through the batteries a little faster than I'd like."

"I think," Zordon said in a low tone, "that this is worth the cost."

Alpha turned to look at him, optics swiveling. Sam thought, not for the first time, that the two of them had a kinship the others would probably never begin to understand. The only two survivors from a millennia ago.

"You're sure, Zordon?"

"I'm sure. Run the scans, Alpha."

With a whirring little noise that Sam interpreted as a sigh, Alpha turned to the console and called up the scan. In the back of her mind Sam worried about the power issue, but her joy at potentially, _finally_ having her robot - her Zord, she supposed she needed to get used to calling it - crowded it out.

* * *

 

That had been a week ago. The scans were still running, and Sam had taken to spending most of her free time in the command center, listening to the quiet beeps and tones of the radar.

When that wasn't an option, usually because Alpha had chased her out, she and the others were trying to address the problem of how to get to it if and when they found it.

"It's almost definitely sitting on the ocean floor," Billy said. The cork board on the back wall of his workshop was covered in a large nautical map, one that showed the ocean depths of the waters around Angel Grove. He stood in front of it like a professor as the rest of them crowded into the narrow space."Now. Fishing boats, like your dad's," and this was directed to both Jason and Sam, "are only permitted to go 200 miles out." He pinned a string to the area designating the coastline, and pulled it out to the 200 mile mark. "This is the overall area boats from Angel Grove tend to fish in." Another string, perpendicular to the first, down nearly the entire length of the map. "The Zord could be anywhere within this area."

Zack gave a low whistle. "That's a lot of real estate."

"Does Alpha have this information?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Billy said, shrugging one shoulder. "He used it to narrow the search, but like Zack said, it's a lot of real estate."

Sam groaned, dropping her head back. "I'm never gonna get my robot."

"Not necessarily." Billy fiddled with something on his desk, and a holographic grid overlay appeared over the map.

"Holy shit," Trini said flatly. "When'd you learn to do that?"

"When I was making Sam's watch," Billy said. "This grid is the foundation of the hard-light holograms - like a 3D model or a wire frame for a sculpture."

"It's seriously cool, is what it is." Sam stood up, peering at the overlay. "What's it marking out, though?"

"I had an idea," Billy started, then seemed to falter. "I mean, it might not be a good idea, and y'all can totally tell me I'm wrong or that we need to think of something else, but Alpha's scan is taking a really long time -"

"Relax, Billy," Jason said kindly. "Your ideas generally seem to work out."

Billy took a deep breath, visibly relaxing, and gestured at the grid. "I think we can look for it ourselves. If we can visually search an area, Alpha can exclude it from the scan, and it'll go that much faster."

"That's a crushing depth," Kimberly pointed out. "Even with our Ranger abilities, I don't think we could survive that."

"Not to mention oxygen," Trini added.

"I have an idea about that too," Billy said, touching the device on his desk again and making the holographic display vanish. "Come with me."

He led them out to the gorge, where they dropped through the water to get to the ship.

"I think," Billy said, facing out over the cliff, "that our suits will let us survive underwater."

This took a moment to sink in for the rest of the group.

"Like, air and stuff?" Zack asked finally.

"And the pressure?" Sam added.

"Maybe." Billy turned to face them. "The air we can test here. The pressure's a little bit harder, but since we have to find a hidden place to get in the ocean anyway if we're gonna do it this way..." He shrugged.

"Okay, so...how do we do this?" Jason asked. His expression was dubious, and Sam privately agreed. Sure, the suits had stood up to numerous battles with the putty creatures that still made sparse appearances in the woods around the town, but they couldn't punch the ocean into submission. Even putting that aside, there was Sam's own private fear: that her suit would fail again. She'd more or less absorbed what remained of Rita's will, as far as any of them could tell. She hadn't had the nightmares that had plagued her those first months, not for a while now. But Zordon had used words like _insidious_ and _guileful_ that made her think she never really would be certain she was completely free of the influence.

"I'll do it," Zack said, and everyone looked around at him, though no one was really surprised. "There are radios in the helmets, right? I'll let y'all know if I start to black out, and you can come do CPR on me." He waggled his eyebrows at Trini, who rolled her eyes and muttered something along the lines of "let him drown" under her breath.

Behind the others, Sam faltered. She should volunteer. She should go, not Zack. It was her Zord they were trying to go after; she should be the one putting herself at risk.

But that fear nagged at the back of her mind. Images of the suit failing, water flooding her helmet and her lungs. Worried that her will wouldn't be enough, no matter how much Alpha tried to convince her that she'd fully taken on Rita's power. That spectre would always be floating in the back of her mind.

"I'll do it," she said, her mouth moving independently of her brain. The others looked over at her, and Zack frowned.

"I got this," he started, but Sam shook her head.

"It's my robot," she said, flashing a wan smile at him. "I should put in the work."

"If you're sure," he said with a shrug, stepping away from the edge and letting Sam take his place.

"Guys, _I'm_ not sure about this," Kimberly said, worry coloring her voice, but Sam had already called her armor, opalescent green shimmering into place, visor secure over her eyes. She felt the others do the same, felt the tug at her core, the connection that stretched between all of them.

"Good luck?" Trini said over the comms, sounding as uncertain as Sam felt.

She nodded, took a deep breath, and stepped off the edge.

It had taken a while for her  to stop screaming when gravity dropped out from under her, even when she knew she would absolutely survive the fall. Now it was almost meditative, the free-floating sensation washing out all other thoughts. Even that wasn't enough to drown out the anxiety in the back of her mind, but as she slipped through the surface of the water, she tried her hardest to shove it away and focus on not _drowning_ , even as she held her breath on instinct.

 _So far so good_ , she thought, very pointedly _no_ t thinking about the graph Alpha had showed her, of the exact moment her armor had thinned enough for the visor to crack.

"It's been a minute," came Billy's voice in her ear. "Most people can hold their breath for at least two, so if we don't hear from you by then we're coming in."

Sam reflexively curled her hand into a thumbs-up, even though there was no way the others could see it, and she shook her head a little at herself.

The seconds ticked on, and her lungs started to burn more with each that passed. Eventually she couldn't stand it anymore, and gasped out loud in the confines of her helmet.

Several horrible seconds passed as her head throbbed from the oxygen deprivation, and she felt the overwhelming fear that her armor had failed, she had drowned, and just hadn't realized it yet.

"Sam?" Kimberly's voice, barely-restrained panic.

"I'm here," Sam said carefully, after a couple of false starts. It was a mental disconnect, being able to speak while floating in the slightly murky water.

"Thank god."

"So the suits _can_ breathe underwater!" Billy sounded positively gleeful at the discovery. "But how, though?"

"We can ask Alpha," Jason said.

There was a collective moment of silence as his words sank in.

"Okay," Trini said. "Next time, we go to the robot _before_ we risk our lives for science."

There was a series of splashes above her, and she propelled herself away from the impacts, watching as everyone was very still for a moment, presumably as they forced themselves to breathe in defiance of several million years of self-preservation instinct.

"This is seriously cool," Zack said, turning in circles in the water to look at each of them.

"Let's go ask Alpha what else we can do," Kimberly said, and twisted herself to point downwards.

Sam watched them descend, letting herself drift in the water for a few moments before frog-kicking her way down through the field that held the water back from the cave system below. She twisted at the last moment, the motion practiced by now, and landed on her feet on the rock floor. The armor slid away from her, and she reached into her pocket. The translucent green stone that had started everything, that had literally changed her, rested there, warm to the touch. It was a comfort to her, and one she'd fought for. It was gratifying to know that at least one of her fears was unjustified.

"Hey." Sam's head shot up, startled at the voice. Jason stood in the cave mouth, watching her with a concerned little frown. "You alright?"

"Yeah," Sam said, smiling more brightly than she felt, sliding her hand back out of her pocket. "Just tired, probably. Hurry-up-and-wait does that to me."

Jason tipped his head to the side slightly, not saying anything, and after a moment he just gestured for Sam to go ahead of him into the tunnel. "Come on, the others are waiting." He followed behind her, and Sam wondered for a moment at the feeling of security she had with him at her back.

"Of course the suits provide oxygen," Alpha said, waving his hands at the six of them without looking away from his terminal. "They identify the wearer's needs and adapt to them. Don't need you hyperventilating the middle of a fight."

"So it would adapt to the pressure of the ocean floor?" Billy asked, and Alpha threw his hands in the air again.

"Probably! They adapt to the vacuum of space, or at least they used to. I don't see why they wouldn't - why do you want to go to the ocean floor?" He did look around then, optics flicking to each of them in turn.

Billy outlined his plan to Alpha, pointing out how much of the map had yet to be covered by the scanner.

"I mean, i wouldn't mind the help," Alpha admitted. "I've been having to pause the scan every so often just to save power. It shouldn't be draining this quickly." There was a frown in his voice. "If we just had...well, we don't." He cut himself off, turning back to the terminal. "If you think it'll help, go for it. I'll keep an eye on you from here."

The wall behind him, empty now of Zordon's visage, rippled softly, a motion Sam was coming to associate with unease on Zordon's part. She frowned at it, but said nothing, following the others out through the caves.

* * *

 

It was getting dark by now, and they split up as they reached the edge of town, heading for their respective homes. Sam's father's truck was in the driveway as she approached, and with a sigh she flicked a finger at her watch. Her father had no idea of the change that had taken place, and fully believed he still had a teenage son. Billy had rigged up the hard-light hologram emitter to mask Sam's new appearance, and it had worked thus far. She had no idea what she was going to when school started; the idea of having the illusion up for eight hours a day was almost intolerable. She liked how she looked now. She didn't want to have to hide it.

But the situation was what it was, at least for now, and she shoved the gloomy thoughts aside as she entered the kitchen.

"Sam?" her dad called from the living room.

"Yeah," she called back, already opening cabinets. Her father had long ago accepted that Sam ate like a horse, sometimes several horses, and shopped accordingly.

"You been out all day?"

Sam grabbed a large can of stew off the top shelf, narrowly avoiding dropping it on her own head. "For the most part, yeah."

There was silence for a long while - not unusual, her father was never what might have been called a "talker". Then, as Sam sat at the small kitchen island with her bowl, he spoke up again.

"Hey, I don't mind you having girls over, but make sure they take all their stuff home, alright?"

Sam paused, spoon halfway to her mouth. "What do you mean?"

"I did your laundry."

Sam choked on air. Her dad never did her laundry, hadn't since Sam was tall enough to turn the machine on herself. It was why she'd felt safe putting the various new items of clothing she'd needed in her hamper.

"Uh. Sorry?" she ventured. She hated that her dad thought she was some kind of playboy, but she'd brought it on herself when she'd told him the movies she genuinely enjoyed - romantic comedies, mostly - were for watching when girls came over. The alternative had been a diatribe on what movies she _should_ have been watching. This way involved less scowling.

"It's fine, just tell 'em to take their stuff with them."

"I, uh. I will." She couldn't see him from where she sat in the kitchen, but she had the feeling her dad was attempting to tease her with this information. He didn't know he'd given Sam a borderline panic attack.

She walked through the living room with her bowl, suddenly wanting the relative seclusion of her room. "What's got you doing other people's laundry all of a sudden?" she asked cautiously. Her dad shrugged in return.

"Getting a little stir-crazy, I think." He hadn't been out on a boat since they'd snagged the Zord. All the fishing boats were running a lot closer to shore. "Probably gonna pick up some repair work if this goes on much longer."

"Alright. Hope you find something. "

"Yeah, somebody's gotta feed that black hole you call a stomach." That was a light tease, and an old one. Sam just gave a soft snort of a laugh and retreated into her room. As uncomfortable as it was, she left the watch on for a little longer than usual. Just in case.


	2. Chapter 2

They met at a small spit of beach the next day, the six of them shivering in the early morning air and ocean spray.

"This is about in the middle of the area Alpha's scanning," Billy said, peering at a tablet in his hands. "We can start here and work out way out to the other end, then Alpha will only have half as much to scan."

"Sounds like a plan," Sam said, cupping her hands around her coffee cup. The styrofoam leeched warmth into her fingers, and she held her nose over the steam escaping from the lid. _Why are mornings always so_ cold, she thought miserably. She knew she'd be in her armor when they entered the water, but the thought of it still made her shiver reflexively.

"Here." Zack struggled with his backpack, trying to extract several coils of rope. "Buddy system."

"That's smart," Trini said, sounding surprised.

"It happens." Zack shrugged, and handed her a rope.

They morphed, the cold ending abruptly as the armor encased them. Trini and Billy tied themselves together at the waist, then Zack and Jason, leaving Sam with Kimberly. They waded into the ocean, Sam marveling privately at the complete absence of sensation from the water rapidly rising around her legs.

"Weird," she heard Jason mutter through the radio; he must have been having the same disconnect.

"Alright, we've got a 100 square foot area to check," Billy said. "Once we get completely submerged, we can fan out. Call out if something happens."

"Like what?" Trini asked, and there was a thread of anxiety in her voice.

"Sharks," Billy said.

"Sunken treasure," Sam added, as Trini sucked in a sharp breath.

"Sea monsters," Zack added a moment later, and Trini started muttering invectives under her breath.

"I'm keeping an eye on you," came Alpha's voice in their helmets, both surprising and oddly comforting.

It was peaceful, as far as Sam was concerned. Like floating in the lake in the gorge, like falling from the cliff. The fish were extremely perturbed by their presence, and kept their distance for the most part, only the bravest and most inquisitive swimming in to investigate the bright colors of their armor.

"I never knew how pretty it was down here," Kimberly murmured, and Sam gave a soft hum of agreement. The rising sun filtered through the layers of water above them, making everything soft and dreamlike. Even Kimberly, hardly ten feet away, was a soft fuzzy spot of color in the distance.

It got darker and darker the farther they went, and none of them seemed to experience any ill effects from the increased pressure.

"Hey Alpha?" Jason asked at one point, his voice carrying similar anxiety to Trini's, earlier. "The suits monitor our vitals and stuff, right?"

"That is correct."

"What's our blood nitrogen look like?"

Sam paused, and felt Kimberly do the same at the other end of the rope.

"Looks good from here," Alpha announced cheerfully, and they took a collective sigh of relief.

"They must be pressurized," Billy muttered. "That shouldn't be possible, there's not enough space, where would they even - "

"It's okay, Billy," Trini said dryly. "You keep focusing on what is and isn't possible while we look for the giant metal dragon at the bottom of the ocean."

That got a small chuckle from the others, and then they fell mostly quiet as they focused on their search. The visors seemed to have some kind of low-light vision, which Alpha theorized triggered when the suit sensed their eyes straining in the dark.

"How much autonomy do these suits have?" Sam asked, making another wide sweep across her and Kimberly's assigned corner of the grid space they were searching.

"It's just predictive virtual intelligence," Alpha said nonchalantly.

"So the armor's not gonna get mad at me and start walking around on it's own?" That was Zack, and Sam gave an indelicate snort at the idea.

"Not unless something goes really terribly wrong," Alpha replied cheerfully, and Zack gave an exaggerated shuddering noise.

* * *

 

They didn't find anything that day, or the next, though Sam admitted over lunch that she was glad that it at least got her out of the house.

"My dad is going absolutely nuts," she said, stabbing her Chinese food a little more violently than strictly necessary. "Even with the repair work he's picked up on the side, he doesn't seem to know what to do with himself when he's not on a boat."

"I hear that," Jason said, somewhat darkly.

"Are you having to leave your watch on a lot?" Kimberly asked, wincing in sympathy when Sam nodded glumly.

"I mean, it was always kind of a drag when he was home just because he takes up the living room," she said with a small shrug. "And bitches about how much time I spend working on computers. I think he's liked how much I've been out lately, to the point he's not even asking what I'm doing."

"Lucky," Trini muttered.

"Imagine how he's gonna feel when you pull a big robot out from under the ocean," Kimberly teased, and Sam shuddered expressively.

"I don't want him knowing anything about _any_ of this," she said vehemently. "There is no part of that conversation that could possibly go well."

The fifth day of searching, the five-hundredth square foot they'd combed while tied together at the waist, and Zack gave an excited shout in Sam's ear.

"There's something metal out here," he said. "I mean, it could be somebody's beer can, but it's the most we've found yet."

"We'll head your way," Jason responded. "By the time we get there you should know what you've found." He and Sam were partnered up today, and they made their way slowly across the ocean floor. Pressure might not have been an issue, but drag still was, and they moved in almost comical slow-motion despite Sam's impatience. She was trying to temper it - Zack was right, it very well could just be a beer can, or a sunken boat, anything that could have produced a reflection from the lights in their helmets. But there was two weeks of anticipation simmering under her skin, and she desperately wanted it to be what they were looking for.

They caught up with Zack and Billy, who were examining the source of the reflection. It did indeed resemble an overturned boat, an elongated sort of canoe shape, and Sam's heart sank a little in her chest.

"Just a boat, huh," Jason said, and he sounded at least half as disappointed as Sam was. He'd been out here for a week too, after all.

"I'm not sure," Zack said, kicking the metal. "If it was just a boat we'd be able to pull it out of here, no problem, yeah? But even me and Billy together can't budge it."

"Weird," Trini agreed. She and Kimberly were still making their way over.

"....hang on." Sam started untying the rope from her waist, and Jason made a sharp noise of protest. "What? We're all right here," she pointed out, and he relented.

Freed from the restraint, Sam walked up to the boat shape, and with a slight effort, launched herself on top of it. Her light cut through the dark water and the sand kicked up from her jump, showing that the metal continued for quite some distance. She walked along it like a balance beam, the other's lights gradually fading into the distance. She didn't know how far she walked, but eventually the boat shape ended and melded into a vertical wall of metal. It was only visible by the reflection of her light, as it was a dark green color that blended in with the water around it. As the light moved across it, the color danced, flecked with whites and blues and yellows.

"Hey guys?" she called through the radio. "Unless a whole bunch of boats sank here in a weird-ass tetris pattern, we _might_ have found what we're looking for."

With some coaching from Alpha, they scanned the foot - Sam was pretty sure it was a foot - and sent the data to Alpha and Zordon.

"It's made of the same metal as the ship," he said excitedly. "And therefore the same metal as the Zords! Which means it's a Zord!"

Sam laid a hand on the metal wall in front of her. A sort of giddiness was rising in her chest, and she felt herself smiling underneath the helmet. This was it. The final piece. She'd long since stopped feeling _excluded_ by the other Rangers, but this was the one thing they'd had that she didn't. Now - hopefully - she did.

"So how do we get it out of here?" Jason asked pragmatically.

"Sam will have to form a bond with it," Alpha said. "To be able to pilot it out of the ocean."

"And how do I do _that_?" Sam asked, looking up at the leg.

"The same way you morphed the first time," came the response. "Focus on your connection to -" A burst of static interrupted him, garbled whatever he said next, distorting his voice into a dark parody of itself.

"Alpha?" Sam laid a hand on the side of her helmet, as though that would improve the signal at all.

Nothing but garbled static answered her. "Jason? Zack?" No response. Frowning, she lifted her feet, letting herself float, and kicked off of the leg to swim back to the others.

They seemed to be in a similar state of distress, with Kimberly frantically pointing up, signaling the others to surface. Sam reattached herself to Jason with the rope before they all pushed off, the suits seeming to respond and restore their buoyancy to allow them to ascend.

Once they broke the surface of the water, they retracted their visors to speak normally.

"What the _fuck_ was that?" was Zack's first statement, which Sam agreed with wholeheartedly.

"Something's messing with our comms," Jason said grimly.

"You don't think the command center's being attacked, do you?" Kimberly asked, concern writ large across her face.

"Only one way to find out." Jason detached himself from Sam, handing the rope to Trini. "You two stay here. Start trying to bond with the Zord. The rest of us will head back and make sure everything's alright at the ship."

"I marked our location on my map," Billy said, and he did indeed have the hard-light projection pulled up from a device on his arm. "So we can find you again."

"Alright," Sam said, and didn't try to hide the worry in her voice. "You guys be careful, alright?" Part of her wanted to go with them, but another part said if something was happening, or about to happen, they might need the extra Zord.

"We'll radio you as soon as we can," Jason assured her.

"If we can," Zack added darkly, and they slid their visors down and started the swim back to shore, guided by Billy and his map.

Sam and Trini made their way back down in as straight of a line as they could manage, but it still took a bit of searching to find their way back to the Zord. Sam stared up at it, hands on her hips, trying to figure out how to even start doing what Alpha had said. She tried to mime what she was considering to Trini, but sign language was not working for either of them. In a moment of frustration, Sam physically leaned as close to Trini as she could, hoping maybe the sound would escape her helmet. They bumped together as Trini leaned forward as well, and suddenly Sam could hear her as the sound conducted through the metal of their helmets.

"That would have been nice to know half an hour ago," Trini said bitterly.

"Tell me about it," Sam agreed. "Look, I wanna swim up. Get as close to the...cockpit? As close as I can, that seems like it'd be the 'heart' or whatever."

"This is your show, man." Trini gave an awkward sort of shrug. "I'm just here to make sure you don't drown."

"I appreciate it," Sam said dryly, and they jumped together to kick their way up the height of the titanic Zord.

Eventually, they reached the robot's chest, and the transparent shield covering the cockpit. The arms were outstretched to either side, and Trini untied the rope from around her waist to go rest on one of them, settling into what Sam recognized as a meditative pose.

She floated around the cockpit for a moment, trying to find a good place to land, and finally settled on the slightly sloped top of the cockpit's shield. She didn't know if proximity would actually make a difference, but it couldn't hurt, either.

Folding herself into a similar pose as Trini, she closed her eyes and reached into herself for the place she associated with morphing: her connection to the other Rangers and to the morphing grid itself. She touched it carefully and with the very firm thought that she did _not_ want to de-morph right now. Reaching into that feeling, she extracted the little core of warmth and made an offering of it. Not to anyone or anything in particular; the Zord wasn't exactly being an active participant in the conversation.

She just stayed there like that, offering out part of herself. For how long she didn't know, she just counted her breaths and waited (and remained very firm on the fact of not de-morphing). She had been meditating with Trini for a while now, and as a result her patience was a lot better than it used to be. But even then, she was starting to feel prickles of irritation in the back of her mind at the lack of response. Was she doing it wrong? She didn't know what else she could offer. Being the Green Ranger was the most precious thing to her. The place where it usually sat in her chest was cold, and grew colder the longer she held it out.

Finally, blessedly, she felt something. The touch of a mind not her own. Instinctive fear at the intrusion, born of Rita's influence and the havoc she had wreaked through Sam, but the other mind seemed to understand that fear, or even recognize it. It too had suffered that sense of innate _wrongness_ that Rita's corruption seemed to induce. Then it had sat alone, a long and lonely wait at the bottom of an alien sea. Betrayed by the only thing in the universe it had every truly _known_ , in its soul, and then abandoned.

Sam wanted to weep. Both for it, this abused and abandoned soul, and at the sensation of being _understood_. The Rangers sympathized. They knew she had been hurt, been used, and knew a little of how that affected her interactions with them. But this was like finding someone whose scars matched up with hers. Like the two of them had survived the same house fire and not realized it until they found each other decades later. Only it had been millennia for this poor soul, and Sam reached out to cradle it to her, to take it into herself, to make sure it was never alone again.

"Sam! Trini!"

Jason's voice was unbearably loud in her ears, and the connection shattered like so much glass.

"God fucking _dammit_ ," she yelled over the connection. " _What?!_ "

"You gotta come up." That was Billy.

"I almost _had it_ \- "

"Something's coming." Jason again, and the sternness in his voice did little to disguise the fear there. "We've got short-range comms only - we're standing on the beach - something was on the _moon_ and it's _coming_."

Sam and Trini looked at each other, and Trini started upwards immediately, pushing off the arm and kicking towards the surface. Sam turned and pressed her forehead against the dark metal, projecting as hard as she could, promising with her heart and soul that she would be back when it was safe, that she wasn't abandoning it, that she would protect it, and that she would _come back_.

A weak, distant response, a sliver of uncertainty but a desire to trust, and she caught it and held it tight in her mind.

_I'm coming back_. And she turned to follow Trini to the surface.

* * *

 

She was only halfway there when the first strike hit, a massive downwards force that knocked her ass over teakettle and left her spinning in the water. There was no projectile that she could see, just a massive impact on the water. She swam in its wake, hoping whatever it was wouldn't hit the same spot twice, and was rewarded by impacts on either side of her, far enough away that she wasn't affected.

She could see the sun through the water when a new horror started. The armor was peeling back from her hands like it was washing off in the water, and she stared at it in horror before focusing, as hard as she could while she was still swimming, on putting it back in place.

The armor crawled back up her arm a bit, then stopped, inched backwards, then forwards. Like it was fighting something, or was confused somehow. She broke the surface of the water and the armor all but evaporated, leaving her shivering in the sudden shock of cold ocean water.

Above them, hovering in midair, were several figures, too far away to see clearly without the enhanced vision of her armor. There must have been a dozen of them, just floating there. Several were armed with what looked like grenade launchers aimed down towards the water. At least four were holding a platform, which held a chair - no, Sam realized. A throne. A curving red-and-silver throne, upon which sat a similarly red-and-silver person holding a staff. She couldn't see him clearly, but the sun glinted sharply off that silver, and if her blood ran cold at the sight, she couldn't have said why.

"Sam!" It had taken only seconds to scan the skies, and Trini was shouting her name, swimming towards her as fast as she could. Past her, she could see a bright pink dot diving into the water and swimming towards them with equal speed.

"Why'd you de-morph?" Trini asked as she got close enough, catching Sam under the arms in a rescue tow.

"I _didn't_ ," Sam protested, but Trini's visor had snapped shut against the waves kicked up by the continued impacts. Sam had no such luxury and wound up physically pinching her nose shut to keep the salt water from burning its way up her sinuses.

Kimberly met them halfway and took over the rescue tow, as the water around them continued to rock with unseen projectiles. Sam could see, when the water wasn't crashing into her face, that the figures hadn't moved, they had just turned to follow them and that glinting silver had not diminished with distance.

"I can _swim_ ," Sam protested at one point, but it went unheeded, and she mostly got a mouthful of water for her trouble.

Impact, on their left, near enough that Kimberly had to stop and steady her course. Then again, on their right.

_Ranging shots_ , was all Sam had time to think, before they were hit dead-on, and were forced down into the water, spiraling away from each other, and Sam just felt overwhelming _pain_ before the dark ocean overtook her.


	3. Chapter 3

 Cold. Cold metal, underneath her. Soft beeping noises. Muffled voices. Sam opened her eyes and regretted that choice _immediately_ , light searing through her eyes and into her brain causing her to slam them shut again and groan with pain.

"Sam?" That was Alpha, uncharacteristically quiet, standing over her, which was a new and unsettling experience.

"'pha?" Was all she could get out; she felt like she'd been hit by a train and forced to drink gravel at the same time.

"Don't talk. You're...very hurt."

 _No shit, Sherlock_ , Sam thought without venom. Anger took energy, which she absolutely did not have at the moment.

"You were attacked," Alpha went on, still in that too-quiet voice with anxiety threading through it. "We're not sure by who yet. The others all have some degree of injury as well, but you being out of your armor..."

"How bad is it, doc?" Sam forced out, and heard the quiet whirring of Alpha's optics before he answered.

"Your healing ability is still functioning," he said after a moment. "But the injuries were...extensive. I would not recommend standing." The addition was terse enough to make Sam risk opening her eyes again.

Alpha had moved the light away, bless him, and the rest of the room was cool and dark. Clearly she was in some sort of medical facility, from the soft beeping of her heartbeat on a screen she couldn't read.

"How bad was it?" she asked again, this time without the teasing tone, and Alpha hesitated for a solid minute.

Which was enough time for the lights to go out completely. Alpha started hissing, rapid-fire, in a language Sam didn't recognize, but swearing seemed to be universal in tone. A few loud banging noises and an electric blue spark from somewhere nearby and the lights flickered back on, sickly and uncertain.

"That keeps _happening_ ," he said, exasperated. "Even back-up power is failing, since if the morphing grid is out of alignment then _everything_ is out of alignment..."

"Wait, back up." Sam turned her head, carefully, to look at Alpha. No pain there, which was a relief. "The morphing grid's fucked up again?"

Alpha nodded, throwing his hands in the air. "I don't know what's causing it. All I have are theories, and I can't even bounce them off of Zordon since he's having to stay powered down, too, unless it's _really_ dire." His optics were absolutely spinning, as much as he was clearly trying to repress it, and Sam reached out to him, wincing and faltering as the motion sparked a sharp pain in her side. _Ribs. Those are ribs._

"Calm down," she said gently, though it was still strained from the pain. "If you break down from stress we really will be up a creek."

Alpha tried to process that phrase for a moment, then gave up, instead taking Sam's hand and laying it back at her side.

"I'll get the others," he said. "They wanted to know when you woke up."

The five of them gathered around Sam in the small room, a slightly claustrophobic circle around the table she laid on.

"Jesus, y'all look worse than I do," Sam said, staring up at the variety of bruises and black eyes that surrounded her.

"I wouldn't count on it," Zack said grimly.

"Why were you out of your armor?" Trini sounded frustrated, almost angry, and possibly on the verge of tears.

"It wasn't on _purpose_ ," Sam said. "I was headed for the surface, same as you, and it just...peeled back, off my arm. I tried to will it back on, and it _tried_ , but it was like something was pushing against it."

"Like with Rita," Jason said, and from Sam's position she could just see the set of his jaw, the stern expression, and the way he wasn't looking at anyone. He was right about something, and he wasn't happy about it.

"It's not her," Sam said, surprised with how certain she was of that fact. "It didn't feel the same. It wasn't from in here - " She reached up to tap her temple, and her ribs and shoulders seized with pain. When she'd finally caught her breath and the stars in her eyes had subsided several moments later, she continued weakly. "It was something from outside, pushing against me."

"There's that, at least," Jason said. He stepped away from the table, and Sam could hear his steps back and forth across the metal floor as he paced.

"Guys," Sam asked quietly. "How bad was it?"

No response, save for a sharp inhale from Kimberly.

"Please." The plea came out as a whisper, and Sam shut her eyes. "I need to know."

"If you...if you weren't a Ranger, you'd be dead," Kimberly said, her voice tight and the words terse, like if she didn't bite them out they wouldn't get out at all.

"Closed casket," Zack added darkly, and Sam heard the _whap_ of someone - Trini, most likely - hitting him in the arm.

"We all got beat up, but our armor took the worst of it." That was Billy, so quiet before now that Sam had almost forgotten he was there. "But you...a direct hit, from whatever that was, and out of your armor...it wasn't good." Tap-tap-tap of fingers on metal; Billy was more agitated than his voice belied.

"If the power can stay on for more than a few minutes, the medical facility should supplement your healing ability enough for you to go home tonight." That was Alpha, sweeping the conversation away from Sam's very-near-death experience. "You'll still be very visibly bruised, however."

"That's fine," Sam said, pushing away images of her own body, ragdolled on the ocean's surface. "I got a watch."

"True." Alpha pulled a screen over, adjusted a few sliders. "You all should rest too," he said to the others. "You'll heal up a lot faster but that doesn't mean you're not still hurt."

"Thanks, mom," Trini said, with a softer edge than true sarcasm would have held.

The others sat with Sam for a long while, occasionally making small noises of astonishment as bruises faded before their eyes, and occasionally a grunt of pain as a muscle slid back into place. Sam herself was eventually able to sit up, though she leaned heavily against the back of the machine and mostly kept her eyes closed against waves of pain.

"They're still up there," Jason said. "Just...floating, over the harbor. They're talking about evacuating the city."

"Probably not a terrible idea," Sam said tightly. "Things generally don't end well when shit starts floating over the city."

"You weren't here for that, right?" Kimberly asked.

"No, we moved here a little bit after. If we hadn't already bought the house, I think my dad would have gone literally anywhere else." A little snort of a laugh; even that caused a sharp sting in her side. "At that point I think he was just glad it was still there."

"Neighborhoods and stuff didn't get hit very hard," Zack said. "Mostly just the town itself. Krispy Kreme, stuff like that."

"Yeah, explain that to me. Why the Krispy Kreme of all things?"

That led into a detailed explanation of the first time they had fought together, their original issues morphing, and - with a lot of hesitation and shared glances - what had finally brought them together.

"Wow, I thought you were just being a shit when you said he died," Sam told Trini, who gave her a sharp half-smile in return.

"Nope. One hundred percent authentic what-the-fuck."

The power chose to flicker off right then, as it had several times during their conversation, and Alpha immediately headed for the panel on the wall that housed the connections for the med bay.

The sparks flew into the darkness of the room, but nothing happened. Two, three more strikes, Alpha muttering under his breath in that same alien language.

"It's not _working_ ," he said in English, and Billy had started across the room to assist when the voice thundered into all of their ears.

 _I AM LORD ZEDD_ , it said, deep bass and unbearable volume making them all cover their ears even as far underground as they were. _I REQUIRE THE ZEO CRYSTAL. BRING IT TO ME OR I WILL TAKE IT._

And then it was gone. Sam groaned, lowering her arms gingerly, and the lights flickered back on, sickly yellow as opposed to the normal soft blue-white.

"You need to go home," Alpha said, in a very small voice. "Now. Quickly."

"Alpha, what the hell - "

"Now," Alpha repeated more firmly. " _Quickly_. I have to get the wall working which means I have to shut down most areas of the ship which means the dark which you can't see in but I can." His voice was rising in both volume and speed now, and Kimberly and Zack helped Sam off of the table with a hand under each arm. "I'm sorry, Sam, you should have had more time to heal but...things are getting very bad now."

"Alpha, who _was_ that?" Jason asked, with his "team leader" tone that the others occasionally teased him for, and that had absolutely no effect on Alpha.

"With any luck, Zordon will explain it to you," Alpha said, physically shooing them out of the room. "I just need time. And power. Go, go!"

* * *

 

They maneuvered their way out of the ship, with Sam being half-carried most of the way and completely carried through the lake when her legs wouldn't support her attempt to jump. They made it to the treeline eventually, and the movement seemed to have kick-started her healing, like the increased circulation quickened the already expedited process.

Sam made it home on her own two feet to a darkened house, which she was thankful for. She was both exhausted and starving, and she knew if she didn't address the latter first she'd wake up with severe regrets.

So she was in the kitchen when her dad got home, crashing in from the carport with a look of panic on his face. Sam had heard the truck pull in and flicked her watch on without looking as had become almost second nature.

"Sam, thank god, I've been looking everywhere, there's - " He stopped in his tracks, and when Sam looked over at him all the color had drained from his face. She turned to face him more fully, frowning in concern.

"Are you alright?"

"Clair?" The name came out in a whisper, and Sam's stomach dropped violently. Clair was - had been - her mother. She'd only heard her name a handful of times in her life, most people preferring to say "your mother", when they said anything at all. She had died bringing Sam into the world, and Sam had come to the conclusion that people thought she might have some guilt over that.

"No, dad," Sam said cautiously, worrying seriously for her father's mental stability, and watched him flinch and recoil.

"Sam?"

"Yes, dad, it's me. Are you alright?"

"No," he responded thickly. "I don't think I am."

Sam turned to lay her fork on the counter and, in doing so, caught a glimpse of her own torso. It was not the image the watch projected over her, the male appearance that her father knew.

"Shit," she said, quietly and with feeling. "Fuck shit goddamn." She snatched at the device on her wrist. It sparked in her hands, causing her to flinch away, and she spat out a few more choice expletives before turning to her father. The watch was broken, either from the water or the impact; she wasn't sure and couldn't spare a thought for it right now. She had not prepared for this situation. In hindsight, she really should have, but she'd been distracted by...everything.

"I can explain this," she said, holding her hands out to either side, like she was approaching a startled animal.

"What _happened_ to you?" her dad asked, and, with a wince, Sam realized that without her mask, he could also see the bruises that still colored her face and arms.

"I can explain that too." She dropped her arms, tossed the watch on the counter. It was useless until she could get it back to Billy. "Look, just...come in, okay. Come in the living room."

He stayed frozen in the doorway for another long moment, eventually shrugging out of his coat, without taking his eyes off of Sam. Her skin prickled at the stare, and with the thought that in his panic and the half-light of the kitchen she very much resembled her mother. She'd never thought it of herself; she'd only seen her in pictures, after all. But she had the distinct impression that was only half the reason for her father's deer-in-headlights impression.

They settled into the living room, Sam on the sofa and her father in his chair, both of them on the edge of the seat rather than in any sort of relaxed position.

"So," her father said quietly, and Sam took a deep breath.

"So," she sighed. "I went up the mountain one day."

She detailed the days following that, pulling out the power coin to show her father. She’d quickly realized she couldn’t explain the changes to her body without explaining everything else. So she explained the dreams, Rita's last proclamation that no man would wear her armor. That the changes had been her will, and watched her father draw himself up at the thought that it had been forced on her.

"It's fine," Sam said quickly. "Well, I mean, it wasn't _fine_ , but...I...I'm okay with it." That part was the hardest so far, and she had to force the words out of her throat. Her father paused, a variety of emotions crossing his face, until he seemed to decide there were bigger things to address at the moment.

"So why haven't I seen this...you...before now?" he asked, and Sam sighed a little in frustration.

"I had a watch," she said, gesturing back towards the kitchen. "One of the others made it for me. It projects a hard-light hologram that looks like...how I used to look. It broke, which was really something I should have expected, but it's been a little hectic lately."

"Yeah, you were telling me about that." There was a slight edge to her father's voice now, and she flinched a little before continuing.

"Yeah. Um. So. I kind of. Became a Power Ranger?" Her voice crawled upwards with the statement, as did her father's eyebrows.

"A what?"

"You know those armored people that stopped the attack on the city before we moved here?" They'd been on the news, both local and national, pretty much non-stop since.

"Yeah."

"One of those."

He stood abruptly then, pacing back and forth across the carpet. Sam was reminded vividly of Jason for a moment.

" _How_ ," was all he said, not pausing in his pacing.

"The coin," Sam said simply. "Rita - she used to be a Ranger, millennia ago. Part of the original team. The coin was hers, and it...it's mine now." That was a little more forceful than the rest, trying to project the confidence in her role that she'd fought so hard for. "She tried to take it back from me," she said, and her father turned on his heel to stare at her.

So she'd explained about how they'd been clearing out the mutated animals, affected by the shards of gold that had fallen from Goldar after the attack. About how Rita's will had taken over enough to influence her. The things she'd done while influenced, though that was in a quiet, halting voice. She still wasn't proud of that, even though the others had gone to great lengths to explain to her exactly how much it wasn't her fault.

That prompted several more rounds of pacing. "I was in town for that," he said quietly, when he finally spoke. "I remember that. They made us hunker down in the fucking 7-11." A terse, humorless laugh.

"I'm sorry," Sam said in a small voice.

"No, no." He waved off her apology, settling his hands on his hips and looking over at her with very tired eyes. "That was long enough ago that I don't think it caused....this." A quick gesture at Sam's face.

"Yeah, uh. That was today."

"I figured, they look pretty fresh."

If you only knew, Sam thought. "You remember the bigass robots on the news?"

"Yeah."

"You remember that thing your boat snagged a couple weeks ago?"

"Yeah." Sam watched the dots connect in his head, waiting for the circuit to connect. "Aw, hell."

"Yeah. That's mine." A low ache in her chest, at the thought of it still alone at the bottom of the ocean, as it had been for so long. _I'm still coming_ , she promised, hoping it could hear her. "We were trying to get to it when....I guess you heard the message earlier?"

"Yeah, that loud fucking...Lord Zippo, or whatever."

Sam managed a small smile at that, which faded almost immediately as she continued. "We were attacked. I think by him, I don't know yet."

Her father froze for a second. Sam wasn't sure he was even breathing. He crossed the room to her, sitting next to her on the sofa, and gently took her chin in his hand. Tilted her face back and forth like he'd done after her first playground fight.

"He did this?" It was a whisper. Sam nodded mutely, and her father drew in another sharp breath.

"We were all hurt," she said. There was no way she was telling him _how_ badly she'd been hurt. "We, uh. We apparently have some kind of healing factor. Some comic book shit," she said with a small laugh. Her father clearly did not share her humor, however little of it she had. His face was set in a hard line that was very quickly becoming a scowl. "I'm sorry," she said again.

"You could have died," he said, and she could barely hear it. "Several times now, you could have died, you were off doing all this dangerous shit and I didn't even know." On his feet again, running one hand through his hair. "I had no idea what you were doing, I was just happy you were out of the house. That you seemed to have made friends."

"I mean, those are still true," Sam pointed out, shrinking back at an angry look from her father.

"You changed," he said shortly. "Literally, your entire body has changed. And apparently this was something you wanted and I...I never knew." He sounded tired, and utterly defeated. "This was not in any of the single-parenting books," he muttered, and Sam wasn't sure she was supposed to have heard it, but her heart squeezed regardless.

"If it helps," she said, "I didn't know I wanted it until it happened. Not really. I just kind of...settled into it a lot more than I thought I would. And realized I felt better than I had before, and not just because I have friends, and we're doing something important. Really, really important." She did look up then, and couldn't read the look in her father's eyes. "Zordon said from the start that Rita wasn't the last threat. I think...I think this is what he meant."

There was a long silence between them, which her father finally broke. "You have to deal with it, don't you?"

 _If I can_ , Sam thought. She hadn't told him about the armor failing, or anything about the morphing grid. She figured he was getting enough of an info dump today. So she just nodded, which her father followed with a nod of his own. He ran his hand through his hair again, and came to sit next to her on the sofa.

"I, uh. I've never really been an _open_ kind of person," he said, without looking at her. "I know that. It's been hard, since, you know. Your mom." Sam nodded; she'd always known a large part of his reticence had been the scar on his heart that had never really healed. "But I hate that you've kept such a huge secret from me. Maybe that's unfair of me, I don't know. I just can't stand that you thought you couldn't trust me."

"That wasn't - " Sam started. "Zordon told us we had to stay a secret."

"From your family?" Her dad stared at her then, and she was stunned by the combination of fear and hurt in her eyes. "Do any of the other families know?"

"No, and you _can't_ tell them," Sam pleaded. "Seriously, dad. It's important."

He chewed on that thought for a second, shaking his head a moment later.

"It's not mine to tell, I guess," he muttered, and Sam sagged in relief.

"Thank you." That just got a grunt in return.

Her phone went off then, startling them both badly. She glanced at the screen, snatching it up when she saw Jason's name.

"What's up?"

"Alpha's got Zordon up, but we don't know for how long," he said. "Get there as fast as you can."

"Got it." She hung up, looking over at her dad again. "I have to - "

He just nodded. "I know. I hate it a little, but I know." A shrug. "At least I _know_ , I guess."

They stood together, and Sam headed into the kitchen, ignoring the food she'd started preparing in favor of a handful of power bars. When she returned to the living room, her dad was just standing there, looking utterly adrift. She cleared her throat, making him look up.

"If they tell you to get out, get _out_ ," she said. "I'll be home as soon as I can."

Another mute nod, and after an awkward moment she walked past him, towards the door. Her dad stopped her with a hand on her arm, dragging her into a tight hug that stunned her. Her dad hadn't hugged her since she was a kid. She didn't know if it was the fact that she looked the way she did now or the depth of her father's fear for her, but she returned it with equal ferocity until he released her.

"....Zordon is a really _stupid_ name," he said, and Sam broke into surprised laughter.

"Be nice, dad, he's an alien." He gave her a smile in return, and she turned towards the door.

"Sam." She turned back at the sound of her name. "Be careful."

A lump rose in her throat, keeping her from responding other than a nod, and she took a deep breath as she closed the door behind her.

And she sprinted for the gorge.


	4. Chapter 4

It _hurt_ , to run like that on her still-healing legs. But she made it to the gorge, and the cool water was a blessed relief to her muscles. Alpha had done _something_ to the force field at the bottom that pulled the wetness from their clothes as they descended, but she realized that this function had been sacrificed for the sake of energy as Sam landed in a sodden crouch under the lake.

She wrung water out of her hair as she made her way down the darkened hallways, eventually having to dig her cell phone out and use it as a flashlight. She could hear voices at the end of the hall, and used them as a guide as well.

The room that housed both the morphing grid and Zordon's big face-wall was lit only by the other's phones and the small screen Alpha had pulled up in front of him.

"Good," he said tersely as Sam entered. "We were waiting on you."

"Zordon said you needed to hear this most of all," Trini said softly, and Sam found a spot against the wall to sit and shiver.

"I've activated the parts of the ship that house Zordon's mind," Alpha said, "but the wall simply draws too much power. So it's just his voice, for now."

"I appreciate that you have done even that, Alpha." The voice was as loud as ever, but it sounded...tired, somehow. "There is a grave threat facing you, Rangers."

"Lord Zedd." That was Zack, more solemn than he usually was. Sam assumed they were all still healing, still exhausted.

"That is correct. He is an intergalactic conqueror from deepest space, and has amassed overwhelming power over the millennia of his life. He is the one who swayed Rita from her duty as the Green Ranger." That was was a little bitter, a little sad. "He taught her the magics she used against Earth, but that was only a fraction of his own abilities. He was able to copy the green power coin, and taint that copy with his darkness."

Sam tried not to notice the way everyone else's eyes cut over to her.

"The two coins cannot coexist in the same space. They draw their power from the morphing grid, and having both nearby is placing far too much strain on it."

"That's why the ship's power keeps going out," Billy said. "Is it also why Sam's armor failed?"

"Yes. The grid is...confused, in a way. It cannot power two green coins and so it powers neither."

"Then how do we stop him?" Jason asked. "The five of us barely took down Rita, and if this guy is even stronger, without Sam..."

"Or her Zord," Kimberly added, and the dull ache in Sam's chest returned.

"There is one advantage I can give you," Zordon said, and Alpha swiped a digit across his screen as though they'd agreed on the cue beforehand. The lights flickered dangerously as each of the pedestals around the center, where they’d stood the first time they morphed, slid open. Each pedestal seemed to hold a weapon of some kind - Sam could see a bow, a sword, a pair of daggers. "These are your weapons."

" _Our_ weapons," Trini repeated flatly.

"Yes. I didn't feel you were properly prepared to use them against Rita, and time was of the essence. But you will need every option available to stand against Lord Zedd."

"Um," Sam said weakly. "I'm only counting five." There was indeed an empty pedestal, directly in front of Sam.

"Unfortunately, yes. The dagger Rita held was lost with her."

Sam rested her head against her knees. That figured. It wouldn’t make sense if Rita _didn't_ throw a wrench into the entire practice of being the Green Ranger.

"What's worse," Zordon said, and Sam picked her head back up, looking instinctively at the wall even though it remained blank. "The Dragon Dagger is the only way to properly control the Dragonzord."

Even Alpha looked up at that, digits stilling on the screen. "I assumed she would be _piloting_ it, Zordon."

"That may be the case," Zordon said, and Alpha hurried back to his duties as the synthetic voice wavered. "But with Sam unable to morph, the Zord can only be controlled externally, with the dagger that Zedd now possesses."

Alarms suddenly blared from somewhere deep in the ship, dulled and distant, and a look passed around the group and landed on Alpha.

"Speaking of," he said tersely. "Zedd's forces and the Dragonzord are attacking the city."

"They got it up out of the water?" Sam's heart squeezed painfully. Used again.

"With the Dragon Dagger, he can make it do anything, launching itself off the ocean floor is child's play." Alpha's fingers flew at a dizzying speed. "Zordon, I can't monitor the city and keep you here at the same time - "

"I understand," Zordon said calmly, though the projected voice crackled with distortion. "Bring me back when things are well again."

"I will." Alpha closed the connection, muttering to himself, and looked up at the Rangers.

"Take your weapons and go," he said. "It'll have to be field training, unfortunately. Sam, you stay here with me."

"What?!" Sam squawked; she'd already been on her feet and halfway to the door.

"You're hurt, you can't morph, and to put it frankly, I need another set of hands. One that almost knows what they're doing." Alpha's voice was sharp, and Sam looked back at the others, feeling frustrated tears sting her eyes.

Zack was the first to step forward, offering Sam his hand, and she clasped it briefly before he took his axe and headed out the door. The others came up for handshakes and hugs, and Sam told them all to be careful. Jason was last, and she met his eyes as she shook his hand.

"Be careful," she said. "And...try not to hurt the Dragonzord too much, if you can avoid it. It's...not its fault." She knew it was an unreasonable request, but it was one she had to make, for her own sake.

"I'll do my best," Jason promised, and carried his sword out the door with the others.

* * *

 

It was _hard_ , leaving the work to the others. Sam busied herself soldering wires and pushing buttons when she was told to push them and basically rerouting the ship's power systems as best as they could. She could hear the fighting, and when she allowed herself to look at the monitors, she could see the Dragonzord. There was a figure perched on its shoulder, but all she could make out was glinting gold armor and the gleam of the dagger, raised oddly to the figure's face.

The Zord itself was beautiful, emerald green and gleaming silver, and Sam wanted more than anything to be piloting it. Not watching it be puppeted around by a literal space invader.

But she couldn't morph, and she was hurt, and she'd already had one taste of Zedd's power that day. So she bent her head back to her work and tried not to listen too hard.

"Rangers!" Alpha snapped out at one point, and Sam paused reflexively. "There are putties attacking the opposite side of town from you! From what readings I'm able to take, they're stronger than Rita's putties and even the mutated animals. I'll work on finding a weak point."

"Worse than bears?" Zack asked, and Sam couldn't help but smile, though it faded quickly.

Zack and Trini split off to deal with the putties while the others stayed behind in their Zords to continue battling the Dragonzord. True to his word, Jason was trying to swipe the figure off of its shoulder rather than attacking it directly, but the Zord fended him off expertly under the Dagger’s control.

"This isn't working," he finally said, frustrated and exhausted. "We can't do this with just three of us, and we can't abandon the other half of town to the putties."

"What we need is to get control of the Dragonzord back," Kimberly said.

"We need the dagger for that, and the lady in the gold bikini is keeping a pretty tight grip on it," Jason responded.

Sam looked between the two screens, one with black and yellow blurs attempting to find a weak point on the reinforced putties, and the other with three enormous Zords battling an even larger one that called out to her heart in a way nothing else had.

She clenched her jaw, and then her fists, and with resolve she headed for the door.

"Sam!" Alpha called after her. "Where are you going?"

"Where I should have been to start with," she called over her shoulder, and broke into a run.

* * *

 

She tried, in desperation, to morph several times on her way to town. The connection was still within her, she could still feel it, could still draw on it, but it fizzled out before she could call her armor over her.

Her phone went off at one point, and she stumbled slightly as she dug it out of her pocket without stopping.

"Sam!" Alpha cried, with the tinny echo that meant she was on speaker. "What are you _doing_?"

"I didn't know you could call our phones," Sam huffed, breaking out into the wider, less densely forested area that meant she was almost to town.

"I rigged something up to let me talk to you with the comms down," Alpha replied tersely. "But don't change the subject! What are you doing?!"

"I gotta get to the Dragonzord," Sam replied, hanging a right to skirt down the edge of the treeline, trying to stay out of sight of the putties - and of Zack and Trini. She paused there, catching her breath and trying to catch a glimpse of the Dragonzord.

"Why, so it can stomp you flat?!"

"I spoke to it before," Sam ground out. "Okay, not _spoke_ \- I connected with it. I think I can get past the control Zedd's got on it."

"The Dragon Dagger _is_ how the Dragonzord is controlled," Alpha said, frustration making his voice distort slightly.

"When it's held by the Green Ranger," Sam countered. "Whoever that is up there, isn't the Green Ranger. I'm the Green Ranger."

"Sam, you're going to get yourself _killed_ \- "

"Oh no Alpha you're breaking up the distortion must be affecting the cell tower I gotta go." Sam only heard the start of Alpha’s indignant yelling as she shoved her phone in her pocket, and she scanned the treeline again for the Dragonzord.

It towered above the city, seeming to intimidate rather than actively attack, with that glint of gold and silver still riding its shoulder. Kimberly's pterodactyl screamed past, but the passenger stayed where she was. Sam could hear the metallic cacophony that signified Jason and Billy's Zords, as well.

"Now how do _I_ get up there," Sam muttered, just before being knocked heavily to the ground.

A putty stood over her, chattering in that hissing, whistling "language" they had. Sam reflexively kicked up hard with both legs, nailing it right in the chest. She regretted it almost immediately, as the shockwave traveled up her legs and seemed to rattle every bone it found on the way, but the blow landed and the putty screamed as it fell to dust.

She sat up, peering down at it, and righted herself slowly, testing her legs. They ached, but they worked, and she looked up again to see Zack and Trini landing similar blows, right in the center of the putties' chests, rendering them so much grey mist. Seemed they'd found the weak spot, likely on instinct. The solar plexus was a painful hit on a human, after all.

She stood, brushing putty dust off of her jeans, and stared up at the towering Zord.

"Right," she muttered, and started towards it.

* * *

 

She avoided the putties where she could, not wanting to press her luck. A few times she took to the tops of trees to launch herself over particularly large groups of them. Without anyone to terrorize, they mostly seemed to be forming small clusters. She remembered her dad saying he’d taken refuge in the 7-11 before and realized the town must be doing the same now.

She eventually made it to the edge of the battle where the tyrannosaur and Billy's triceratops were straining against an unseen force, gears grinding heavily against whatever was holding them. Kimberly seemed too fast to be caught in the invisible net and continued harassing the figure on the Dragonzord's shoulder.

Sam took advantage of the stillness of the Zords and darted through, managing to clamber up onto the Dragonzord's foot. Taking huge gulps of air, she pressed her forehead and palms against the metal.

"I'm here," she gasped, eyes shut tight. "I'm here, I didn't leave you." From here, she could hear a melody playing, low and sickly-sounding. She couldn't tell where it was coming from, but the notes seemed to resonate through the metal under her fingers with a low hum, like a hive of oddly musical bees.

She searched for a handhold, and when she found one she grit her teeth and _jumped_ , fifty feet up until she could scramble onto the small ledge formed by the edge of the cockpit. Another jump from there, onto the upper arm, and she climbed to the shoulder on shaky legs.

The golden figure was a woman, or at least shaped like one, in a curving breastplate of some kind and a golden mantle. And the silver figure at her mouth was a gleaming dagger, the blade inscribed, and the handle marked with three small pistons. This was what was making the melody; Sam realized this when the  woman took the dagger from her mouth to turn and stare at her with alien eyes.

"Ah, my successor's successor." Sam's head snapped around; Zedd was floating on his platform, directly behind the Dragonzord's head and hidden from view. This close, he looked _flayed_ , his skin was red and pulsing, interspersed by chrome bars that seemed melded with his skin. He wore a helmet with a visor that curved around his eyes, but Sam could feel the pressure of his gaze nonetheless. "Kill her."

Sam saw gold from the corner of her eye and blocked instinctively; the dagger skittered off of her armor.

_Wait_. She stared at her forearm, where her armor had suddenly appeared. Even as she watched it disappeared again, and as the dagger swung at her again, she blocked, the armor sliding over her skin where it struck.

"Irritating," Zedd said, in that unearthly deep voice. "Rita actually found someone with an ounce of will. Someone that the coin actually accepted."

Another slice of the dagger, another shimmer of green, this time across her torso. Sam's mind whirled as she tried to process what he was saying and avoid getting stabbed at the same time. The coin wasn't supposed to work in proximity to Zedd's copy, and she was pretty sure this was as proximate as she wanted to get. But the armor was _trying_ to work.

_If the coin goes with the Zord goes with the dagger, then maybe the dagger can't hurt me at all_ , she thought, risking a kick and almost getting tossed over the edge for her trouble. _Maybe the Zord is breaking free of the dagger's control, now that she's not concentrating on it. Or playing that song._ She dropped low to avoid a swipe and went for the ankle, getting kicked hard in the jaw in response. _Ow. Definitely only responding to the dagger._

She stood, facing the alien woman. They squared off for a long moment, until Zedd repeated himself, in a tone that suggested it was unwise to make him do so: " _Kill her_."

The woman lunged. Sam didn't flinch. The armor shimmered into place over her heart, and Sam grabbed the woman's wrist and torqued on it _hard_. She cried out, the dagger falling from her fingers, and Sam snatched at it as it fell through the air. But she missed, and it tumbled down past the edge, to the earth far below.

From behind them, a low, displeased growl. A single word: "Begone." The woman disappeared in a shimmer of displaced air, and Zedd stood from his throne.

Sam felt herself lifted into the air, the pressure centered around her throat. She rose to Zedd's eye level, feet dangling over open air.

"I want the Zeo Crystal," he growled. "I _demand_ it. I have conquered greater planets than this with a flick of my wrist."

"Big difference," Sam gasped, trying to claw at the invisible grip on her throat and finding no purchase. " _We_ weren't on those planets."

Another growl. The pressure tightened, and stars danced in Sam's vision.

"You think because you defeated Rita you can defend this planet against all comers? _I_ made Rita what she is - "

"Not something I'd brag about," Sam wheezed, and found herself lifted even further.

" _I_ am ten times what Rita was. I _will_ have the Zeo Crystal, I _will_ have this planet, and I _will_ see all of you Rangers dead for daring to stand against me!"

The shaft of an arrow appeared in his throat.

His head snapped to the left, and he growled, low at first but slowly rising as he lifted a hand, a single finger pointed in the direction the arrow had flown from.

Sam took advantage of his distraction and swung her legs up, kicking out _hard_ , and landed a blow right in the center of his chest.

He staggered backwards, landing heavily on his throne, and Sam saw something glistening on his chest, like she'd managed to stab him with the soles of her sneakers.

He _roared_ this time, flinging Sam backwards, past the Dragonzord's head and into open air. He was gone from Sam's vision as she flipped over and over again, until landing none-too-gently on something none-too-soft.

"Sam!" That was Jason's voice, and the clang of footsteps on metal. "Sam, are you alright? Jesus fucking _Christ_."

She opened her eyes slowly, feeling her head throb from somewhere towards the back - probably where she'd hit what she now realized was the arm of Jason's Zord.

"Ow," she said weakly.

"How much ow?" He asked, hands hovering over her.

"Not nearly as much as last time." She sat up carefully, staring at the air past the Dragonzord's head. "Where'd he go?"

_I AM LORD ZEDD._

"There he is," Jason muttered.

_I WILL HAVE THE ZEO CRYSTAL. THIS PLANET CAN HOLD OUT AS LONG AS IT WISHES; THE ZEO CRYSTAL WILL BE MINE, AND I WILL IN SPITE OF WHATEVER RESISTANCE ATTEMPTS TO KEEP ME FROM IT._

"Tag me next time," Sam yelled, and Jason stifled a snort of laughter. No further message was forthcoming, and Jason helped Sam stand.

"Alpha says the presence around the moon is gone," he said, "or at least receded enough that it's not affecting the morphing grid anymore." He paused. "Also that you're lucky you weren't killed and a lot of words I don't understand but I don't think they're nice."

Sam laughed, not realizing until she'd done it how good it felt. They jumped down from the arm together, Billy and Kimberly rushing up to them once they'd hit the ground.

"Oh my _god_ , Sam." Kimberly tackled her in a hug, knocking the air out of her lungs slightly. "What the _fuck_."

"I'm getting that a lot today," Sam said, hugging Kimberly back. "Hang on, I gotta do something."

She broke away from the group, heading for where she saw a glint of silver in the dirt. Pulling the Dragon Dagger from where it had landed, she held it in her hand, and with an effort of will she called her armor.

Sliding the visor of her helmet back, she lifted the dagger's handle to her lips. She'd never played a wind instrument in her life, but the shadow of a memory guided her, and she played a short, brassy melody, more triumphant from her than it had been from the alien woman. Or maybe she was just biased.

The place in her center where she held her connection to the others grew warm, and a feeling of contentment spread through her as the Dragonzord bent towards her, the cockpit's shield sliding back. She smiled, pulling the dagger away from her lips - she didn't think she'd need to use it again. She leapt up into the cockpit, sliding into the pilot's seat as the Zord righted itself, and as the shield slid back into place she felt something touch her mind. Less a thought than a feeling, a deep, resounding gratitude that made her own chest swell and tears prick her eyes in response.

She touched the controls gently, sending back her own gratitude, her own relief. Something settled inside her, like her connection with the other Rangers, but also unalike. It was specific to the Dragonzord, specific to her. It was strong, and warm, and it felt _right_.

 


	5. Chapter 5

There wasn't much cleanup to be done; the putties weren't really the "mass destruction" type, and the worst Zedd had been able to do with the Dragonzord was ruin parts of the marina that were already being rebuilt. So Sam and the others checked on those that had taken shelter in the surrounding buildings, escorting a few home that were too afraid to travel by themselves. One of them lived in Sam's neighborhood, and she walked with her to her home.

"You weren't at the attack," she said quietly as they walked. "The first one, I mean."

"No," was all Sam said in response.

"What, do you guys recruit? Go around to high schools and colleges?" Her smile was thin and trembling, but it was there, and Sam let out a sharp, surprised laugh.

"Not so much. It's...a complicated process."

"So no signups, huh."

"No, not really."

Sam dropped her off at her door and cut through a few backyards to avoid being seen demorphing and heading to her own home.

She came through the front door, finding her father on the sofa, news on the TV, and a backpack at his feet.

"Hey," she said quietly, and he turned to her, startled.

"Hey," was all he said. He gave a small huff of laughter. "I'd almost thought I hallucinated earlier."

Sam gave a wan smile. "Afraid not."

He hesitated, licking his lips before he spoke again. "Everything alright now?"

"Yeah," she said, turning and closing the door. "For now."

"That's not promising."

"It's not a lie."

"There is that, I guess."  
  
Sam sat in the chair that her father normally claimed, facing him with her hands clasped in front of her.

"So," her dad said, after a long moment. "How do we go forward from here?"

Sam quirked her lips up. "You read the books again, didn't you?"

He shrugged. "Kept me from watching the news." A pause. "I didn't see you out there."

"If they were focused on the Zords, I was probably too small to see." She clamped her mouth shut at the way his lips pursed.

"You were with them?"

"Yeah."

He looked away, seeming to process that, and shook his head. "That's the sort of thing you guys do, I guess."

"Not normally," Sam muttered. "It was....a weird day."

"Tell me about it." He looked back at her. "So, same question. Where do we go now?"

Sam took a deep breath, sighing through her nose. "I haven't talked to Billy about fixing the watch," she said. "Mostly because I didn't have _time_ , but...I don't know if I want him to. It's a brilliant little piece of tech, but...I was mostly using it at home. I don't even really use it in town; no one knows me well enough to notice a difference. And I was having trouble with the thought of wearing it eight hours a day at school, anyway." She met his eyes. "I don't wanna hide anymore, if I don't have to."

There was a long pause. Her dad swallowed hard, lips in a thin, hard line. "Alright," he said, shaking his head a little. "It'll take some getting used to, for me," he warned. "But if you're happy..." Another pause. "Just maybe get your doohickey fixed, for holidays and stuff."

Sam frowned; she hadn't thought about that. She acquiesced in the moment, nodding her head, but decided to bring it up again when the occasion arose. She meant it about not hiding anymore.

"And the...fighting, and stuff..."

"Rangers," Sam said quietly. "We're called the Power Rangers."

  
"Right," he responded. "The Rangers...I know I can't stop you. But likewise, you can't stop me from worrying." They met eyes again, and the worry was there now, almost palpable in the room. "You gotta know how dangerous it is."

"I do," Sam said, remembering the ocean, and the table in the command center. "I really do."

"Just...don't do anything stupid," he said. "Don't...don't be a hero."

Sam said nothing. She wasn't entirely sure she could promise that. She knew Zedd most likely wasn't gone forever. She knew, somewhat distantly, that he might even be gunning for her specifically, now.

"I'll be as safe as I can," was her eventual response, and her dad just nodded.

"I suppose that's all I can hope for," he said quietly. He looked up again after a moment. "I just realized. That wasn't a girlfriend's laundry I did, was it?"

Sam's cheeks blazed. "Um. No."

He was quiet for a long moment, eyes fixed on a point just above the television. "Well," he said, a little too loudly. "That's a thing. You hungry? Who am I kidding, of course you are. That's not gonna change no matter how many aliens get after you."

They sat together and talked as they ate, something that hadn't happened for quite some time, and when Sam left to head back to the command center she felt oddly full. Not physically, though she did have a nice solid feeling in her belly for the first time in a couple of days. If she had to be exceedingly sappy about it, her heart was full. Her dad knew, about everything, and even if he wasn't entirely solid on how he felt about it, he hadn't reacted the way she had feared he would. She had someone - something? she wasn't sure how sentient the Dragonzord was, if it was a person or a particularly empathetic robot - that understood how she felt, how Rita's creeping insidious manipulation affected her. It was nice.

Plus: giant robot.

* * *

 

She slid through the barrier at the bottom of the lake - apparently the power was back on - and headed for the main chamber with blessedly dry clothes.

The others were standing around the central console when she reached it, with the slots on the pedestals open and holding the weapons they'd been given the day before.

"Sam." That was Zordon's voice, as loud as ever, and she smiled up at the projection of Zordon's face on the wall.

"Good to see you, Zordon."

"Likewise. I've been informed of your encounter with Lord Zedd - that was very risky." He paused. "And very brave."

Sam shrugged one shoulder, suddenly uncomfortable. "I mean. I wasn't gonna let him just run rampant." _Or take what was mine_ , she added silently. Zack came over and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, hugging her briefly.

"Good to see you're okay," he said. "You disappeared after everything, we didn't know what happened."

"I went home," she said simply. She planned to tell them about her father, but now didn't seem quite like the time.

"Regardless, he has retreated for now, and the Dragonzord has been returned to us. Both very great victories."

"And now, we can prepare in case he returns." Alpha shuffled over to the console, and the empty slot on the side. "With all the weapons returned to the ship, we can activate a shield over a significant area."

"Wait, really?" Jason perked up on the other side of the room.

"Their power draws from the morphing grid," Alpha explained, "but also feeds back into it. We weren't able to utilize it with the Dragon Dagger missing, but since Sam's retrieved it..." He gestured at Sam, who slid her bag off her shoulder and pulled the dagger from inside.

"We gotta train with these," she told the others. "If Zedd sends those souped-up putties back we gotta be able to do something about them."

"Or if he comes up with something worse," Jason said grimly. "We need somewhere to train with the Zords, too."

"Maybe make that big one we made before," Billy said. "Plus the Dragonzord."

"The six of them were capable of combination in the past," Zordon said. "Together they formed the DragonMegazord."

"That's a hell of a name," Sam said, and couldn't help but grin at the thought. The footage of the Megazord against Goldar had been seriously impressive.

"Return the dagger to the pedestal, if you would," Alpha said patiently, and Sam stepped forward, slotting the dagger into its place.

The center display lit up, charts and meters surging for a moment, then fluctuating wildly as the lights in the room flickered on and off.

"That's normal," Alpha called as the others looked around in alarm. "The ship is redistributing power now that it's got a lot more of it."

"I am really tired of the strobe effect," Sam heard Trini mutter, and quietly agreed.

"There!" Alpha cried triumphantly, and the lights stabilized as a low hum could be heard from somewhere deep in the ship. "The shield actually covers most of Angel Grove!"

"Which means it protects the Zeo Crystal," Kimberly said. "Since that's what everyone comes here for."

"In the past, the shield could cover at least half a planet of Earth's size," Zordon said, a hint of regret in his voice. "But it is good that the Zeo Crystal is under it now."

"Zedd'll be back," Jason said with certainty. "But he won't catch us off-guard again."

"He's still got that fake power stone," Sam pointed out, heart sinking. "He can put me out of commission again."

"Then we'll kick his ass for you," Zack said, like it was a foregone conclusion. Which Sam supposed it was. They were a team. That was what teams did.

 _No_ , she corrected herself. _That's what friends do_.

* * *

 

She did go to Billy with the watch eventually, in his workshop at home. He looked up at her with immediate concern.

"Did it work in front of your dad?"

Sam's response was a nervous smile.

"How did you - I mean, I'm sure he wanted an explanation, because _I_ would want an explanation - "

"I'll tell everyone about that," she assured him. "But at the same time. So I'm not repeating myself five times."

"That's fair," Billy agreed. "But...if he knows, which I'm assuming he does...do you even need this anymore?" He lifted the broken device, and Sam's face twisted a little.

"I don't _want_ to need it," she admitted. "But...it's probably better to have it. Just in case." She flashed him a smile. "Plus it's just a really cool little gadget, and it'd be a shame to leave it broken."

"That I can agree with," Billy said, and bent over his worktable.

* * *

 

When everything calmed down, Sam spent a lot of time sitting with the Dragonzord. Sometimes talking with it, sometimes not. Sometimes she just meditated there, feeling their connection expand and warm her from the center out. The Dragonzord never really responded to her, aside from a few warm, gentle touches on her mind. Mostly they sat in quiet camaraderie together, mingling their spirits.

"My dad took me to get my ID changed," she said during one of these visits, sitting on the Drazonzord’s foot, against its leg. "I didn't expect that. Of course, I didn't expect most of this." She smiled, laughing a little at herself - and at the delightful absurdity her situation.

The Dragonzord didn’t respond, as per usual. She didn’t mind; she knew it could hear her. She knew if she wanted a response, she could go to the other Rangers. To her friends.

“It’s weird,” she mused quietly. “And I don’t want to jinx anything, but...I feel like everything might be starting to be _okay_ , you know? This whole...Green Ranger thing. It really feels like it’s coming together.” She leaned back against the Dragonzord’s leg, closing her eyes, and that’s when she got her response. A deep, resonating sense of contentment. Relief that things were better than they were before.

She smiled, eyes still closed. “Me too, buddy. Me too.”

 

 


End file.
